


A Far Kinder Grave

by emynii, ObliObla



Series: Nia & Obli's Whumptober 2019 [29]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Angels, Blood, Demons, Existential Angst, Gen, Hell, Lucifer Bingo 2019 (Lucifer TV), No Smut, Pre-Canon, Pregnancy, Stars, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 02:17:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21348625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emynii/pseuds/emynii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: In the beginning, it is said that God created the heavens and the Earth. And there was a garden called Eden, and it was something like paradise. And into this garden was placed a man and a woman.But they were not Adam and Eve.For the Whumptober prompt: numbFor the Lucifer Bingo: Free Space
Relationships: Lilith & Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Lilith & Mazikeen (Lucifer TV)
Series: Nia & Obli's Whumptober 2019 [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1502000
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80
Collections: Nia's Lucifer Bingo, Unearthed





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings are in the end notes of the second chapter.

In the beginning, it is said that God created the heavens and the Earth. After a few days of light bringing and water separation, God and his angels seeded the soil with green growing things and placed the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, and the beasts in the wilderness and the fields.

Now, much of this is apocryphal, but it is true that there was a garden called Eden, and it was something like paradise. And into this garden was placed a man and a woman.

But they were not Adam and Eve.

Eve came later, formed from one of Adam’s ribs to be, supposedly, a perfect helpmeet. Though that is, of course, another story. No, the humans placed in the garden were Adam and Lilith, formed together from Eden’s soil. Adam was given dominion over the naming of animals and Lilith over plants, but Adam grew to believe his power over the beasts of the field also gave him power over his wife.

Desiring to escape her increasingly overbearing husband, Lilith took to the outskirts of paradise where the stranger plants grew that her husband had no use for. In truth, he rarely had use for anything he could not eat. She would kneel beside them, as gentle with their stems and leaves as she might be with a lover, parting the earth to plant precious seeds deep and see them bloom.

She knew she was forbidden from passing into the land beyond their little paradise, a place that appeared dry and barren, sparking with lightning and rumbling with distant thunder. But each day that her husband, who seemed entirely content with his small, verdant bower, attempted to command her, she ventured out further and further away from him.

And what wonders she found there. Trees with tendrils hanging down like the dark, wavy tresses that framed her face and tumbled down her back. Flowers that bloomed with colors she’d never seen before, their stems twisted with sharp thorns that pricked her calloused fingers. Clear pools of still water, where she stared at the flatness of her expression, at the darkness under her brown eyes like bruises, tracing her lips, wishing she knew what was missing.

One day, gathering figs in a large leaf to eat in the outskirts of Eden as she often did, she was interrupted by her husband.

"What are you doing?" Adam asked, coming up from behind her.

"Exploring," she told him. "Discovering."

He frowned. "The shelter's roof needs to be fixed. It leaks when it rains."

She shook her head. "But, Husband, I've found so many new things that might help us." She'd begun to understand that certain plants had uses far beyond simple food and shelter.

"That's not what matters," he said. "What matters is to fix the shelter, to gather food. To stay here, with me."

She bit her lip, finally saying the words she'd wanted to say for what felt like her entire life. "But that's not what I _ want.” _

"It doesn't matter what you want," he said, not even cruelly, but as if it were a statement of fact. And, in that moment, Lilith fully realized it was. It never had mattered, and it never would.

She nodded, dropped her simple basket, and started to walk away. The figs spilled from its mouth, rolling over the soft earth.

"Where are you going?" Adam called, though he didn't follow her.

"Away," she said simply. The wide expanse of the lands beyond Eden stood before her, dangerous, perhaps, but aching with something that tasted more like freedom than any fruit of paradise ever could.

She didn't look back.

* * *

The wilderness beyond Eden was not as barren as it had appeared from paradise, but it was still much harder to scrape out a life than it had been before. Yet every wound Lilith soothed with the salve she’d created from some of her plants, every night she went hungry, and every beast that menaced her—for she had no dominion over them—still ached with the overwhelming savor of freedom. She travelled over hills and ridges, forded streams and rivers, skirted the edge of lakes and deserts. Through rain and thunder, by the light of sun or moon, she continued on.

Whether she survived or perished, it would be as herself, fully. Beholden to no one.

And there, on the edge of a lake so vast she couldn’t see the other side, on the banks of a thing too large and slow and bitter tasting to be a river, she rested. Sitting in the sand, staring out across the open water at the way it moved in and out to the phases of the moon, she could almost be at peace. She built for herself a modest shelter of wood and fig leaves, wove a basket from reeds to gather fruit and nuts and wild grain, and started building her new life. She was content, loneliness only plucking at her heart from time to time, and she’d sing to herself as she foraged, winding melodies around her motions and keeping a rhythm that helped pass the days and drive off the ever encroaching silence.

She was wading in the sea, enjoying the cool water on her sun-kissed skin when she heard a voice for the first time in many days.

"Lilith."

She turned, spotting a pair of gray winged figures standing on the shore, glowing with all the glory of their station.

"Angels," she said curtly.

"I am Gabriel, messenger of God. You must return to Eden. It is your place, and it is what God wills," one said, thin and strangely pale, with eyes as blue as Adam’s and long hair the color of flaxen grain. The other, darker than Lilith and shorter, their hair black and twisted like twine, simply scowled.

"No," she said.

"No?"

"Did I not speak clear enough for you? I said I will not return. Adam wishes me to bow to him, to serve him, to _ stay. _ I will do none of these." She tossed her hair behind her shoulder and raised her chin. "I was made the same as him, I am not lesser."

"We will drown you," Gabriel said, "if you do not return."

And she was afraid—angels were dangerous creatures—but she refused to let her fear show, merely telling him, "I will drown either way, then. Either in these waters by your hands or by submitting to being less than I am with that man. I choose to drown as I am, unapologetically. Do as you will."

She wondered if she would die, then. Death had been a distant concept in the garden, but she knew it well enough, now, to fear it. But the angels merely looked at each other, wings bristling as they took to the skies and flew away.

A few weeks passed, and Lilith supposed they might have given up. But she returned to her shelter from gathering grain for gruel one day to find the structure ruined, apparently by a sudden windstorm. She glanced up at the sky, scowled, and headed out to find more fig leaves and felled branches.

Her small garden died next, crops destroyed by hail. She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and started up another work song, sowing the ground with seeds she’d held in reserve.

There were other humans, she’d discovered, and sometimes she would make trade with them, granting them seeds and recipes for cures and poisons in exchange for crafted goods she didn’t have the knowledge of. As the dry season approached, she traded for a net and went out on a small raft into the shallow sea to catch fish. But there were no living creatures in the water, and it shimmered oddly, as if it were choked with poisons not of her making.

She sighed and returned to shore. She would go hungry that night, but she did find a large, beautifully iridescent shell on the beach. She knapped it down into a circle and fastened a leather strap to it. The abalone shone in the light of the full moon where it hung between her breasts.

One night, she was stoking the flames in her pit humming to herself when the waning moon covered up with clouds, and it began to rain in drops so large they bruised her skin. It lasted only long enough to put out her fire, and she buried her head in her hands for a moment. She stood and glared up at the heavens.

"Will you not _ stop?" _ she shouted, throwing up her arms. "Do you mean to wait me out? Are you too much cowards to drown me that you’ll let hunger and rain and cold do so in your stead?"

She kicked a stone with her sandaled foot—another good obtained by the other, less _ chosen _ humans—and watched it sink into the placid sea. "You will have to kill me," she proclaimed, to the heavens and the earth, to every living thing that resided within them. "I swear by the moon and the stars and the night that I will _ never _ return to Eden, no matter how you torment me!"

She inhaled sharply and kicked one of the sacks she used to store grain. "You know, if you wanted seeds, you need only have asked, you puffed up, pigeon-winged messenger boys!"

"Well done, you," a voice called out from behind her.

She turned sharply on her heel to find yet another angel, this one taller than its fellows and pale, with dark hair and wings of pure white. "Angel," she spat. "Did you not hear me?"

"Oh, I certainly did," he said with a chuckle, but then his voice dropped, and he scowled. "And I’m no angel."

She glanced meaningfully at the wings, and he shrugged. They disappeared with a snap. "In kind, perhaps, but not in deed. I think you may be the same, _ human." _

"We are not the same." There was no being like her, none that had denied their purpose so thoroughly.

The angel that was not an angel hummed. "May I join you at your fire…?"

"Lilith," she supplied resentfully, then, gesturing, continued, "And there is no fire."

He snapped his fingers, and the sodden wood burst into flames with a _ crack _like lightning. "May I?" he asked again.

She blinked at him, then at the fire, but before she could speak he was dropping down onto the seat she had carved from a tree trunk, propping his muddy, bare feet on the pile of grain bags. He sighed loudly and splayed his body out, leaving no room for her to join him, not that she’d planned on doing so.

She tilted her head in confusion. "Is this another angelic trick?"

He rolled his eyes. "No tricks. I have been stuck down in Hell even longer than usual. I desire only _ vacation." _

She narrowed her eyes. "You could be lying."

"I don’t lie," he said flatly, but then his good humor reappeared. "Have you wine?" He frowned, grumbling a little. "Have you primitives finally developed controlled fermentation?"

As glad as she was that the angel was neither threatening her nor trying to force her back to Eden, she was beginning to get frustrated. She ducked into her shelter—having to step over him since he was taking up so much space—and retrieved a wineskin. She threw it at his head.

"Hey!"

She shrugged. "You asked for wine."

He opened the skin and took a drink. While he indulged himself, she stared at him in the firelight. There was something different to him than Gabriel and the other angel, almost like the flames were reflected within him.

"What are you called?" she asked.

He wiped his mouth and closed the skin, tossing it back to her mostly empty. "Lucifer." 

"Lucifer…" She shook her head. "And what is this thing Hell?"

He grimaced. "Dismal place. It is much nicer up here." He sniffed, glancing at her shelter. "Even if the accommodations are… sub-par."

She ignored the insult, barely, instead asking, "You are not of Heaven?"

He scoffed. "Not anymore."

She blinked. "Does this mean that Hell is… not of God?"

He tilted his head, considering her more closely. "Did you disobey?" Something between pride and pain crossed over his face before he continued, "Did you _ rebel?" _

She jutted her chin out. "I am beholden to no one but myself."

He pressed his tongue between his teeth, head tilting like he was looking past her flesh, somehow. "You _ are _a fascinating one."

She scowled. "Leave me, not-angel."

He watched her for a moment before standing, brushing the worst of the mud from his leather trousers. He fixed her with his gaze. "Is the fact that you declare yourself beholden to none the reason my siblings have been harassing you? Nothing gets their feathers ruffled like someone with a mind of their own."

She searched for deception in his words, but found none. Pride was rising within her, and she gave into it. "He said obey, and I refused. He said _ stop, _ and I turned away from him. I will not allow some man to rule over me!"

"Kicked you out, did they?"

She laughed. "No, I left. I’d rather have nothing than _ that.” _ She hissed in a breath. "That _ was _less than nothing.”

He exhaled slowly, brow furrowing. "Come with me, Lilith."

She frowned. "To...to _ Hell?" _

"Why not?” he asked, glancing up at the sky. “They will never stop trying to break you. All that’s left to you here is derision and a slow, ignoble death."

"What authority have you there?" she asked blankly.

He chuckled, and a smile more frightening than any she’d ever seen carved itself into his face. "Oh, my dear fallen human, I am its _ king." _

She considered his proposition, but shook her head. "I will never allow myself to be beholden to another again."

He tilted his head in thought. "I have land that needs a ruler. You would have autonomy, or something like it, within your own borders. Granted, you’d have to obey a direct order, but rest assured I don’t like giving commands I don’t have to. Too much like my Father. But…" He shrugged. "I’d leave you be, for the most part."

She hissed out a breath. "I don’t—"

"Think about it." He manifested his wings. "I will return, soon."

Her hair was brushed from her shoulders by the force of the wind as he beat his wings once, but he let himself settle back on the ground for a moment. "Have an answer, hmm?" And then he was gone, in a flash of something like lightning, but it burned more like starlight.

* * *

The shallow reed sea rose and washed away Lilith’s cache of seeds. A lightning strike destroyed her shelter. The other humans began to refuse to trade with her, called her ‘witch’ and ‘demon’ and ‘child killer’. The work of the angels, she knew, but without her preparations and the meager community she’d had, the dry season would be difficult. Impossible, maybe. She began to believe Lucifer would never return.

She found herself often sitting on the shore of the sea that had given her so much but taken more. She no longer sang to keep her work pace, no longer crafted or sowed grain. It all seemed pointless, now. Anything she built would only be destroyed.

It was the night of the new moon, and there was no light but the stars, not even a fire to see by. Lilith was on the beach, scratching symbols into the sand, prayers to something greater than God or Goddess, something she wasn’t sure existed, but she didn’t know how to have faith. She often slept in the open these days, badly crafted tunic and skirts—for she often found her clothing ruined as well—wrapped around her the best she could manage. Her head pounded with the waves, and she seemed to never be able to purge the weariness from her bones. She itched between her legs in a way that bathing and salves never cured, and there always seemed to be wounds on her arms and across her belly and chest that made her ache.

She glanced up at the sky and thanked the angels for such tormentous blessings. They were still infinitely sweeter than subjugation.

She knelt and stared at the stars, cursing the names she had learned from the humans who’d forsaken her—the patterns they had drawn from the light. She cursed the fish of the sea, the bird of the air, and the beasts of wilderness and fields. There dwelled in the sky creatures that crawled and slithered in darkness over the earth, things called demon and devil, and she cursed them all. She cursed the shepherd and his crook, the farmer and his reaper, and all those things she’d tried to wrest from the earth; but the sky-crops were as barren of light as her own were of life, and the water pitcher poured out only poison.

Last, she cursed God and Goddess both, and their eternal throne. So high up, so distant, and they dared try to direct _ her _ life? It was the only thing Creation had given her; everything else she’d had to take for herself.

But was there anything left to take?

"I hate you!" she shouted as they twinkled down at her mockingly. They were so far and so cold. She reached for the shell around her neck, ran her fingers over its smoothened edges. _ "I hate you," _ she whispered.

"And what did my stars ever do to you?" a voice asked, chucking.

Lilith looked down. A being, pure white wings splayed out behind him, stood before her accompanied by a small impish creature. The angel, or… the not-angel. _ Lucifer, _ the king of this domain called Hell.

"You came back," she breathed.

"I said I would," he told her, "and I keep my word." He frowned down at her. "Now, do you have an answer, because we’re rather—"

"Yes." She pulled herself up to stand. "I would have my own kingdom. My own… garden."

He looked faintly impressed before reaching into a pouch and retrieving a small crystal vial and a needle made of black stone. "Hell is… caustic," he explained, looking her over. "Your pretty flesh would melt from your bones in moments."

She inhaled sharply.

"But my demon and I have devised a solution," he continued, shaking the bottle. "As part of our deal, you will consent to having your skin imprinted with this ink."

She stared at the pigment; it was dark red, and shimmered and swirled in its small, crystal bottle. "What is it made from?" She hated how her voice shook.

"Hell ash, Cocytus waters, various enchantments..." Lucifer tilted his head. "Demon blood."

"Why?" She hadn't meant to ask, but the word dropped from her lips like a stone, leaving its ripples on the banks of the Tigris.

"Only creatures of darkness survive in Hell," he said with a shrug. A strange expression flitted across his face for a moment before disappearing. She dismissed it. For now.

She studied the ink again. She had sworn she would never be bound to anything, ever again. And yet that was what Lucifer required of her. Even in being bound in this lesser manner, something in her revolted. But she was beginning to understand that she would always be beholden to someone. The choice, then, was who.

She pulled off her meager coverings until she was bare before the angel and his demon. "Do it," she said, ignoring her doubts, her uncertainties. It may have been the only real choice she had, but it was _ her _choice, freely made. And that was all she had.

And as Lucifer’s demon dipped the needle into the ink and pressed it again and again into her skin in twisting lines over her limbs and belly, chest and throat, she hardened her heart against the pain and felt it slowly numb.

* * *

There were no stars in Hell, nor was there sun or moon. But there was ash, and there was darkness, so much Lilith might drown in it. And yet she was one of the creatures of night and ruin, now, and she told herself she would become acclimated. Told herself she wouldn’t miss the heat of the sun on her skin or the constant companionship of the moon. She touched her fingers to the necklace around her neck, and, slowly, she began to believe it.

Lucifer brought her first to his palace, the seat of his power in the center of the great city Pandemonium. His demons looked upon her with suspicion when she was introduced, and, when she was announced to be the queen of an empty stretch of wasteland, with outright hostility.

But they were far from the first to mock and deride her, so she simply held her chin up and ignored their jeers.

Lucifer may have assured her something like autonomy, but he’d never promised more than that, and, after she swore her fealty before witnesses in the throne room, he left her in that dull, flat, featureless plain alone. Great, predatory birds circled overhead as steam rose from vents in the swampy ground. And there were things moving beneath the surface, reaching up to grab at her feet. 

She’d been walking for God knew how many hours, long enough her clothing had melted away, and she could see a storm brewing on the horizon. She should have stopped to rest, but she feared the hungry earth might swallow her up if she paused even for a moment. She should have drank from the murky pools, but she feared what poison might lay within them.

Lucifer’s enchantments kept her body from disintegrating, but it didn’t keep her comfortable, it didn’t keep her safe, and it certainly didn’t keep her alive.

Ash began to fall, but there was nowhere to take shelter from the storm. She coughed, blood splattering her hand, as crimson as the tattoos crawling down her arms, ending in strange symbols on her palms.

She would drown in ash as readily as she would have drowned in her shallow reed sea.

It eventually became too difficult to continue walking, and she fell to her knees, looking up, sightlessly, at the sky. There were no stars, here, but still she cursed them, cursed the patterns she knew now that her patron had placed in the heavens. The animals she would never again see, the demons and devils she now lived among. God and Goddess, who dwelt so high in their Silver City. And Lucifer himself, who had saved her, but also damned her.

The ash rose to her hips, her waist, her chest, and, still, she tried to struggle to her feet. But she was trapped in the hungry earth, slowly pulling her down. It became harder and harder to breathe. Was this her punishment for abandoning her husband, her creator? Had she really though she had anything like freedom?

As the heavy ash covered her closed lips, her nose, her shut eyes, she saw that thing called death, opening her cruel, welcoming arms.

But something grabbed her, pulled her to her feet, and she kicked out, feeling rough skin where she hit. The thing hissed, and she felt scaled fingers scramble at her neck. 

"Stop! Do you _ want _to die?"

She only struggled harder, choking on ash, blindly seeking eyes, bellies, genitals—soft places to dig her fingernails into. She didn’t know how to fight, but she knew how to survive. It was all she knew. 

But the creature’s hands were strong, its hide tough, and its fingers tightened inexorably around her throat. Her vision grayed out behind her eyelids, her ears filled with cotton, and consciousness was torn from her with the ruthlessness with which she’d denied herself the moon and sun and stars. 

She woke in a shelter much like hers had been before the angels had destroyed it. It was built from hide, bones instead of the wood she’d used, and had a tightly packed ashen floor. A heavy flap covered the entrance, and she could hear the storm continue to beat against it. 

She realized that, unlike the palace, which was filled with flickering blue fires, and the wasteland, lit by the reflection of light from the ever present clouds, there was no light source in here. And yet she could still see. Her fingers trailed over the twining pattern on her arms as she sat up, parting furs on the small mattress to rise. She truly was a creature of the night, now. 

The demon was on the other side of the small space, sharpening a blade. It was large, several heads taller than she was, and scaled a dark, intricately patterned green. It was naked and had a tail like a serpent’s, but also legs like a man, and its movements were smooth and carefully controlled. 

At her rustling, it—_he_—turned his head. His face was not entirely inhuman, though he had no chin, only a gentle sloping down his neck from its lips, had slitted nostrils instead of a protruding nose, and his eyes were amber and snakelike. 

"Are you going to attack me again?" he asked mildly. There was a ragged scratch on one gently scaled cheek, dried blood painting its edges. 

She lifted a hand to her throat, which felt bruised. "Are you?"

He shook his bald, textured head and laid the knife down, instead picking up a rough hewn bowl and holding it out. "You will need to eat, I think."

Only then did she realize she was starving, hunger tearing at her belly. The needs of her body made her bold, and she stepped forward to take the bowl into her hands.

It was filled with strange gray growths that didn’t look like any plant she’d ever seen, and she frowned. "This is food?" At Lucifer’s palace she had only eaten meat, spit roasted over a pit.

The demon eyed her confusedly. "It’s fungus. _ Eat." _

She hesitated. It made little sense for him to attempt to poison her after saving her, and he could easily subdue her physically if he wanted. But she knew that plants could drug and change and suggest, and so she shook her head. 

"For Lucifer’s _ sake," _ he said, exasperated, and plucked a chunk of the fungus from the bowl, popping it into his mouth. He chewed slowly. Nothing happened. 

She bit her lip and took a small piece. It smelled like brimstone, as everything did, but she pressed it past her lips before she could reconsider. She was _ so _hungry.

The flavor burst across her tongue less like ripe fruit and more like mealy, ashen rot, but she choked it down. She took another piece, then another, and, as her stomach settled, she found she could find enjoyment in it.

And the meaty harshness of the fungus slowly washed away the pleasant sweetness of earthly fruit. 

When the bowl was empty, the demon took it away. Lilith licked her chapped lips. He retrieved a leather flask from a small bundle of what were presumably his clothes, as ruined by the storm as hers had been, and took a long draw.

He glanced over at her and sighed, offering the flask. "Here."

She sniffed the contents. It was not water, which was a relief considering what water seemed to be in this place. It had the tang of the wine she’d traded for back on Earth. It was bitter and strong, but she drank greedily until the lines of his strange face turned toward annoyance. She handed it back and wiped her mouth. 

The storm continued to rage as they stood in silence for a long moment. It would be suicide to leave now, but Lilith still considered it. Calamity always came after succor.

But she had always asked questions she shouldn’t, and she spoke, voice strangely loud in the relative quiet. "Why did you save me?"

The demon shrugged a shoulder in a long, serpentine motion. "You are the beast Lucifer brought from above."

It wasn’t quite a question, but she deigned to answer it. "Yes, I am Lilith, born of Eden’s soil."

He nodded. "Your kind fascinates me," he said, nictitating membrane sliding across his eyes. "And there is something in _ you _that is not your flesh, nor your breath."

"What?"

"There is light in you like that of our lord, but... lesser," he said, staring at the disk of abalone between her breasts. His tongue flicked out, forked and thin. "A moon to a sun."

"What do you know of moons?" she asked angrily. She was not lesser than any, least of all that... not-angel. 

"What do _ you _know of suns?" 

"More than a serpent that crawls upon its belly and eats nothing but _ dust." _ She waved a hand at the bowl, still sitting beside him. 

He hissed. "I was not expelled from _ my _garden."

"I am a queen."

And he laughed. "You have nothing, my _ queen." _

"I have myself!" she shouted. "That is all I—" She inhaled sharply. That was a lie; she knew she needed more. But how was she supposed to acquire it?

He smirked, then, and rage pulled at her, bringing with it a new thought.

"I have my light," she said, quieter, but more controlled. "You said so yourself."

He scowled. "I could snuff it out in an instant."

"But you won’t."

"And why not?" He grinned brutally at her, but she refused to be intimidated, striding forward to glare directly into his eyes. 

"Because your lord made me sovereign of these wastes, because I tasted the fruit of paradise and rejected it, because _ I _ stared down God’s angels when they threatened to destroy me. What have _ you _done, little demon?"

He hissed softly. "I have saved you from these wastes you are sovereign over, I have given you the fruits of this land, and you have accepted them, and _ I _ did not turn away when it threatened to destroy you.” The demon blinked again, in the strange way it had, before huffing out a breath and continuing. “So, no, you are correct, I will not snuff your light out. I do, however, think a bit of gratitude is in order. Or do you repay all mercy with haughty hostility?”

She bared her teeth, and he laughed.

He tilted his head, appraising her. “You may fit in here better than I thought."

Her lip twitched in amusement. This demon was different than the jeering ones in Lucifer's city. He had potential. An ally, perhaps.

"Thank you...?" she said, letting the smile come forward, prompting his name.

"Ophur."

“Ophur,” she repeated, testing the taste of the name on her tongue.

They talked for what seemed like hours, and, as the storm raged around the shelter, she found herself moving closer and closer until she was near enough to feel the warmth from his body. He was articulate, and elegant, and not what she had expected. There was, now that she was looking, something noble in his features, even if they weren’t what she was used to. And there was beauty shining from his strange, amber eyes.

Adam had never listened so attentively, nor spoken so cleverly about things so far beyond his little bower, and, when Ophur’s scaled fingers brushed her knee, she felt a familiar heat spread across her skin.

There was a moment when their gazes met where she wasn’t certain if he would pull away, wasn’t certain if she would, but then he was leaning down and she was reaching up and their mouths were meeting with a passion she’d never met in Adam.

But when she woke, aching with something far sweeter than Heaven’s torments, the shelter was stripped bare of anything that could be carried, and she was alone. She reached for her necklace for whatever comfort she could find, and sliced her finger against a sharp edge that hadn’t been there before.There was a piece broken out, leaving the shell split, the moon a jagged crescent.

She pressed the door flap open on an unfamiliar landscape, covered in ash that was already being blown away by the constant winds. And there, in front of her, was a tree. It was the first she had seen in Hell, and it was nothing to the trees of paradise; nothing, even, to the ordinary trees of the Earth. The roots cut into the barren soil, spread wide to catch what sustenance they could; the trunk was gnarled and twisted, the bark stained pale by the acid rain; and the leaves were mottled and dry, receiving no sunlight, only the strange glow of the sky. But she wasn’t one to resist temptation, and she reached up to pluck a small, hard fruit from one of the lower branches, bringing it down to taste.

The fruit was strange and dull, gritty and ashen in her mouth, but there was warmth to it she could pretend was from the sun, not the brimstone flames. And it wasn't the fruit of paradise, didn't taste anything like freedom on the tongue, but it was something. It was all she needed; it had to be.

It was all she had left.

But she would gladly deny the Earth, deny the sun, the moon, the stars. All she needed was this endless night buried so deeply beneath the soil. And yet it was a far kinder grave than the body of a man she’d never love.

As she hardened her heart against every earthly pleasure, against the demon that she’d believed, if only for a moment, might have cared for her, she felt the numbness spread.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings in the end notes.

And in that valley of infernal delights Lilith built her home. The demon’s shelter was meager, but she expanded upon it, and it was hers and hers alone. No angels came down from the sky to destroy it, and any beasts that tried met swift recrimination. And there was something like peace, for a time.

But there was something wrong with her, with her body. It grew heavy in strange ways, her belly distending with something strange and wriggling, her breasts full and aching.

_ Be fruitful and multiply, _ echoed in her mind.

When the time came, and she was stopped from hunting by the rolling contractions in her belly, she covered over the entrance to her shelter with the heavy hides that kept out the ash, and squatted on the clean-swept, mostly solid earth. It didn’t quite hurt, but there was an uncomfortable pressure as she felt herself split between her legs and a small, wrinkly creature fell to the ground, trailing a strange cord, almost like intestine.

The beast was slicked with blood and stranger fluids and looked much like she did, but one side of its face was withered, sinew forming its cheek, one eye milky white. It opened its mouth and loosed a horrible shriek.

She took up her knife and severed the connection, reinforcing the numbness in her heart, staring down at the thing as it continued to wail. Was it dying? The animals she’d seen push out offspring had rarely doted on their spawn. Many of the young would stand within a few hours, sometimes a few minutes, and be on their way. But as the storm continued to beat against the outside of the shelter, the creature’s whine only grew more tormented.

"What do you _ want?" _ she shouted above the din, and it quieted for a moment before gurgling and beginning to cry anew.

She remembered, back on Earth, deer licking at their fawns, cleaning them of birth slick, and she grabbed a fur, leaning over to wipe at the thing’s face. But something ached within her, and she found herself sitting on the ground beside the long, crimson stain. The contractions still shifted her belly, and, after a few minutes, something else pushed out between her legs, flat and bloody and roughly round. She poked at the edge, but it, at least, did not seem to be alive.

The thing continued to wail.

She grabbed it, picked it up, but its head was slack, and she was forced to adjust her grip to keep from it flopping around. It met her gaze with its intact eye, and she felt a twinge near her heart, but her frustration was stronger, and it was easier to just push it all down. She grabbed another fur and cleaned between her legs as well as she could.

Slowly the ash storm died down, and she pressed the creature up against her chest to rise. She pulled the door flap open to try to let out some of the smell, the remainder of the fluid between her legs cooling and growing sticky with the sudden influx of whipping wind. The thing latched onto the end of her breast, and she frowned down at it as it began to suck. But the pressure that had been omnipresent slowly released, and she sighed in relief.

When it seemed done, she put it back on the ground in the shelter, preparing to clean up before the mess started to stink worse. The spawn—_her _ spawn, she supposed—started crying, again.

She groaned, weariness tugging at her. "What a pest are you!" she told it. She picked it back up, and it quieted. She grunted from annoyance, yanked the door flap back closed, and settled onto her makeshift bed with the thing in her arms.

And she slept, at least until it woke her up scant minutes later, screeching like a dying thing. Worry tugged at her—such a sound, especially combined with the smell, might attract predators. She put her hand over its mouth, and it wailed still. "Shut _ up!" _ she told it, and its cry only grew louder.

In desperation, she shoved her nipple back into its mouth, and the cries were muffled, but it only bit down, drawing blood with its small, sharp teeth. She hissed and pulled away. There were a few hard bits of gristle from her most recent kill, and she grabbed one that was large enough on one side the spawn couldn’t choke on it. She pressed the narrow end into its mouth, and the wailing stopped.

It frowned, but didn’t try to spit the thing out, merely sucking and chewing at it. Her ears ringing with the earlier cries, Lilith settled back onto the flat mattress, child pressed to her chest with one hand, knife in the other. And, finally, she managed to drift back into sleep.

She woke a few hours later to the spawn spraying its pungent urine over her belly.

"Pest!"

* * *

It grew intolerably slowly, and every time she saw it, she saw Ophur, who’d abandoned her, who’d broken her abalone moon into a crescent. So many times did she shout _ pest _ at it that soon it was all she called it. In her first tongue, the language given to humanity by God, the word was _ mazikeen, _ and so it was called.

Lilith met other demons as she slowly improved the conditions of her small encampment, expanding the meager shelter and beginning to build a fence to keep out the worst of the ash. Friends, foes, and often both, she began to view them much like the humans she’d traded with back on Earth. She appreciated their goods and taught them what she could in return, but they always viewed her with suspicion.

She trusted none of them, not with her life and certainly not with her increasingly petrified heart.

She fell pregnant again after an encounter with another demon, and some time later gave birth to a second squalling infant. The first of the pests still wailed much of the time, and Lilith found that fur scraps dipped in blood were even more effective at quieting them than milk and gristle.

But demons and beasts continued to encroach on her meager holdings, and she was _ so _tired. One day, during a clear moment between the worst of the ash storms, Lilith managed to get both spawn down for sleep simultaneously for the first time in what felt like eons, curled together on a bedroll. She stumbled across the small space to her own small mattress and fell upon it, asleep before she hit the furs.

She was on the shore of her shallow reed sea. Something was crying, but she couldn’t find it. She stepped out into the water; it froze her feet, her ankles, her legs, but she kept going. She had to find it. It was _ hurt. _ It needed her. There was an ache in her chest, and the waters began to rise further, over hips and waist and chest. But, still, she kept going, moving so slowly the sound was growing fainter, pulled so far away from her.

But she had to find it.

The sea reached her throat, then her mouth, and its poisons poured into her until her bones twisted and her flesh rippled like waves. It flooded her nostrils, and she breathed in venom that seemed cruelly familiar. It covered her eyes, and she saw strange phantasms—rivers running red with blood, angels slashing their feathers through the air, and the moon, heavy hung in the sky, cracking in half…

She awoke to a snarl and a high, mindless cry.

She scrambled to her feet before she could even see, fear cold as seawater filling her veins. She’d left the heavy door flap partway open in hopes something like fresh air might invade the shelter’s mustiness, but now it was torn wide, ripped to shreds. And there was a beast, horns and teeth and whipping, spine-studded tail, and Lilith took up her knife and slashed at its face before she could think, grabbing it by one long, jagged horn, and burying the blade between its eyes.

It fell to the ground with a long, wrenching whine. She breathed roughly, limbs tingling with the aftermath of terror. They were fine. They were all fine. They were—

There was blood on the beast’s muzzle. And the bedroll...

"No! N-n-no, it _ can’t..." _ Viscera was sprayed over half the wall, pooling and congealing on the furs. The scent of blood was sharp in the air, but so was gall and excrement, invading her awareness until there was no thought left but to fall to her knees, bone fragments cutting into her flesh.

Her stone heart shattered, the numbness banished fully for the first time since arriving in Hell. Bile trickled from her mouth, and she choked on air, on ash, on regret. Her hands were in her hair, tearing strands loose as if the pain might calm the excruciation like a storm broken against the shore. And there was a sound echoing in the cursed shelter, a wail that dug its claws into Creation itself and rendered it bloody and empty. There was a void inside of her, like the darkness between the stars, but not half as cold nor half so far. She reached for anger, reached for sorrow, reached for fear and horror and desolation. But there was nothing to grasp onto but grief. She had thought she understood grief, had grieved her life in the garden, her life on Earth. Had grieved the death of the girl she had been, once. But this…

She had never truly known what love was, but now it fastened its jaws around the raw muscle of her heart and refused to let go. She beat at her breast, fingernails digging into still-living flesh, wondering if death would be kinder, wondering if _ anything _ would be a lesser agony than the shards of soft skull that lay cracked on the bedroll like an egg birthed by a bird of torment and despair. There was blood in her mouth, but it wasn’t enough. She gnashed her teeth, feeling her cheeks and tongue and lips tear and rend as her children had. _ Her _ children, who she had not asked for, who she had not wanted. But they had been hers, and she had been theirs, and they were all she had. And now she felt a depth of loneliness she could hardly comprehend.

And there was only silence.

But then something shifted in that ruin streaked across the furs. And there was a sound, a gurgle of pain, and it tore at her anew but it was so much sweeter than any fruit of paradise.

She dug through the blood and the bone and the offal, heedless of the slick on her hands, like the birth slick between her legs. Small, strong fingers clenched around hers, and she uncovered, from the center of the mess, her pest. Her Mazikeen.

"D...dead," Mazikeen said softly, looking at the stain, and Lilith clutched her to her breast.

"Thank...thank…" But there was no one to thank. And there was no name to mourn. She had never called her dead child anything but burden. Waste. _ Nothing. _

She grabbed a fur and wiped off Mazikeen’s face, wiped off her own hands. She didn’t want to go to Lucifer, didn’t want to ask for help, didn’t want to admit she needed any. 

But she couldn’t lose another child.

* * *

Leaving her makeshift home was a terrible risk, especially with a child in tow. All that Lilith had built would be as destroyed as if the angels had come from the sky to bring ruin. But anything was worth never feeling that pain again.

Pandemonium was vast and sprawling, populated by snarling demons who seemed engaged in permanent war with each other. She had only seen the endless series of narrow corridors from above, and they frightened her. She had never felt so trapped. Neither Earth nor Hell had held much in the way of physical walls, and yet that was all she could see, now, the stone rising up into thick fog and swirling ash.

Lilith held Mazikeen more tightly against herself, and tried to keep her head down. Beasts growled from the darkness, and she slashed out at them with her knife. It had been a long journey, long enough Mazikeen had begun, slowly, to walk on her own, though every time she attempted to toddle away, Lilith would see the viscera painting the leather walls of the shelter, and would gather her back up in her arms.

She stopped to make camp on the outskirts of the city, the high spires of the center casting shifting shadows over the stone and the ash. As she stared into the flames of her small campfire, she ran her fingers down the tattoos on her arms. Lucifer would help her. He had seen something in her on Earth. He’d appointed her queen of the great wastes—he would provide her aid, and her child would survive.

Her _ children _ would survive. Her hand crept over her belly as she laid her head on the bedroll. She would keep them safe.

* * *

The palace was intimidating with its great ebony doors and high spire that reached even further into the sky than all the others. Lilith trekked across the square, head held high, Mazikeen bundled in furs at her hip. She ignored the demons shouting and jeering, at her and at each other. She ignored the central dais, where a demon hung, impaled on a pike. Ignored the dried blood on the stone.

She had no illusions that her patron was a kind, compassionate king.

The doors were not locked, though they were too heavy for her to move alone. She raised her fist and rapped against the strange, black material once, twice, a third time. They creaked as they were opened. The door guard stared at her. "Why are you here?"

"I request an audience with Lucifer."

He frowned. "Who are you to ask?"

She straightened her spine. "I am Lilith, queen of the great wastes, and I _ will _ see him."

The demon scoffed and opened his mouth to speak, but, before he could, another demon came up behind him, short, impish, with small, black horns and claws. The one Lucifer had brought to Earth, who had pricked Lilith over and over with obsidian needles until she could survive the hellish climate.

"Don’t be rude, Arkos," he said, then, continuing, "Come with me, Lady Lilith. Boss’ll see you now."

The larger demon scowled as they passed, but she ignored him. She was a queen; she _ would _ be respected. As they walked, Mazikeen began crying, and Lilith brought her to her breast to suckle.

"You’ve spawned, then?" the demon asked, head tilting curiously.

"Yes," she said flatly.

"As beasts do?"

"I am no beast!" The words echoed in the stairwell as the demon led them up, bypassing the throne room with its massive, twisted chair.

"I meant no offense," he said mildly, and she tried to calm herself. She wasn’t sure what this thing called politics was, but she knew that demons engaged in it. She must be smart, now.

She had only ever seen the throne room before; this level of the palace consisted of a vast array of passageways lined with doors, most of them closed. Sconces along the stone walls held torches flickering with pale blue flames. She wondered if Lucifer could not see in the dark as demons could, as _ she _could, or if, perhaps, he simply enjoyed these lesser versions of his burning stars.

The demon stopped in front of a room with a particularly ornate door that hung open. He rapped upon it and stepped inside.

"Oh, Paimon, yes, could you hand me my robe?" Lucifer asked from within.

"Of course, boss, but… there’s someone here to see you." The demon, Paimon, apparently, stuck his head back out and gestured Lilith forward. "I present the Lady Lilith."

This room was, it seemed, Lucifer’s chambers, and, as she stepped inside, Paimon leaving again, he rounded the bed, shrugging on a robe. He frowned. "Lilith, what are you doing here?"

"I needed to talk to you."

"Did you, now?" He turned away from her, glancing into a mirror on his wall, brushing down his hair with his fingers.

She ignored his dismissiveness, holding her head high. "I am here to request aid."

"Couldn’t hack it, then?" He turned from the mirror, his gaze sliding derisively over Mazikeen before settling on Lilith’s face.

She gritted her teeth. "You gave me nothing when I arrived here."

"I gave you land."

"Worthless land."

He snorted. "It’s Hell. What did you expect?"

"A new Eden!" And she had not meant for those words to leave her mouth, had not meant to reveal so much. He already knew more than was safe. She had been too open when they’d first met. But she couldn’t take the words back, and they lay between them like a dead thing. Mazikeen began to fuss, and Lilith hushed her, feeling Lucifer’s eyes on her.

His voice was low and harsh when he replied. "You must cultivate your own garden, child of God."

She took a breath, trying to calm herself, pressing Mazikeen against her as if she could shield her from the words. "But how am I supposed to survive alone?"

He shrugged, already turning away again. "Not my problem."

"But you promised—"

"I _ promised _sovereignty, no more, no less. You wanted freedom, if I recall?"

She jerked her head.

He spread his arms magnanimously. "And so I bestowed it upon you. But freedom, my dear Lilith, is something of a double-edged sword. You are free to live. You are also free to die."

She scowled, but knew she had to change tack. "Fine. I've heard you like deals?"

His eyes narrowed. "You have nothing I desire."

She stepped closer, enough that she had to tilt her head to look up at him. He grimaced, but she kept going. She’d discovered that demons did not bear young, and she knew that most beasts could mate only with their own kind. To mate, then, was her power, was the only plan she had left. "I can give you a child. I can give you an _ heir. _There is no other being in Creation that could give you that."

For a moment he only watched her, jaw clenching with an unidentifiable emotion. But then he took a step backward and burst into laughter. "Give me a child? _ Me?" _

Every peal of laughter was as a knife, slipped carelessly between her ribs. But she pushed down the pain. "Your position would be—"

"My _ position _is secure," he said sharply, but his soberness only lasted a moment before he was dissolving into hysterics once again, his laughter so all-encompassing he was bent in half from the force of it, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

She hissed in a breath. "But I..."

"Leave me," he said through gasping breaths. "I may not find your impertinence so amusing soon."

She turned on her heel, and walked away, chased by the echoes of his laughter. And with every step she felt the pain of losing her unnamed child _ knowing _ she would feel it again, knowing she couldn’t. She had nothing, after all, but _ this. _ Nothing but this ability to create life, and yet it was a cursed gift, for death came with it too.

But no demon would ally with her; the _ only _ way to grow her power was to bear more children, to _ use _ them, even, to ensure their survival. To ensure hers.

During the long journey out of the palace, out of the city, back to the barrenness of her infernal bower, she hardened her heart again. It was her only option, the only choice she had. But it was hers, and she would make it willingly. When she found everything destroyed but that single, rotten tree, she hardened it further. Her choice. She told herself. Again.

And when Mazikeen strayed, fell to her knees, skinning them on rough ground and crying out, Lilith didn’t go to her, letting her pull herself back together. Mercy was weakness, Lilith was learning, and weakness was death. Her choice. Her choice.

Her only choice.

* * *

In the ensuing years, as Mazikeen and the others grew, Lilith sought out mates of many kinds, producing spawn with different strengths the better to improve her power and position. _ Their _ power and position. Soon, there were too many to spend any significant time with them. And there was always more to do, always more to plan. When she left the encampment, which she was slowing rebuilding and improving, she left the care of the spawn to Mazikeen.

She would whinge and moan, but one Lilim’s happiness wasn’t more important than the survival of them all. 

Lilith began trading for different things, now, how to do more than scrape out a living. How to craft weapons, how to fight, how to kill. And she taught her children the best she could. She couldn’t show them affection—it was too dangerous. Mercy was weakness, and she could not allow herself to be weak. This, then, was the only way she had left to care for them.

Mazikeen took to combat as birds to the air or fish to the sea, and Lilith was glad for it. If she was strong, her younger siblings could also be strong. But some were not so clever nor so quick, and some still soft part of Lilith’s heart despaired to see them lost to weakness.

Weakness was death. 

_ Surely, _ then, it was better that they suffer a little at her hand than greatly at the hands of their enemies. Surely all her harshness and cruelty would be returned in their continued survival. Hell was more than a dismal place; it was a nightmare none of them could ever wake from. And when weakness stayed her hand, she’d see her unnamed, dead child smeared against the ash, and she would bring the whip down harder still for the pain she still felt.

They had to learn how to survive, at any cost.

She finally began to feel secure in her holdings, in the walls that surrounded what she insisted on calling a _ palace _ though it was little more than a scattered encampment, in the small forest she’d managed to grow, the roots of those twisted trees providing needed stability to the ground. But she had always been restless, and as soon as the Lilim could maintain it all, she found herself wandering as she once had, testing the bounds of her kingdom.

After a long, arduous journey, she reached the sea for the first time and stood a while there, watching how it swirled and glowed. There was almost something like peace, for a moment, but then she heard the slight crunch of gravel and turned, diving forward, catching the demon intent on sneaking up on her around the shoulders, her blade pressed to its throat.

"Kill me and incur the wrath of the king," the demon hissed. She hesitated, and it ducked, pulling far enough away to avoid her knife.

She narrowed her eyes, reaching for her spear. "What?"

The demon coughed and scowled. "I come with a message from your lord."

Her lip twitched. "What is the message?" she ground out.

The demon cleared its throat, pulling its back straight. "You are to travel to the palace in Pandemonium. Lucifer commands an audience."

Now he wished to speak with her. Not when she was desperate and alone, but _ now _ when she was established. She saw the angel in him more clearly than ever. "And if I refuse?" she asked coldly.

The demon did not back down. "Lord Lucifer instructed me to remind you of the deal you made and of its terms."

She hadn’t known what she was doing when she made that deal, but she knew it didn’t matter. She was bound to it by the twining, scarlet lines of enchantment that covered her body. His demon had granted the protection ward; he was perfectly capable of revoking it.

_ Your pretty flesh would melt from your bones in moments, _ Lucifer whispered in her ear.

"Fine," she said. "Tell him I will be there when I so desire."

The demon scoffed. "You will leave immediately. You will not keep him waiting."

"I—"

"A ‘direct order’, he said.”

Rage boiled in her blood at the insult, but she had built too much to see it ruined by yet another angel. "As he wishes," she said sharply.

Lilith watched as the demon walked away, cursing it, its lord, and every inch of this place called Hell. Earth had been so long ago, now, she hardly remembered it. She barely remembered the sun, the moon, or the stars. She touched her fingertips to the abalone shell she still kept around her neck, though the leather strap had often been changed, and pressed the pad of her thumb against the edge that was still jagged.

She followed the blood as it dripped down, across the thorny glyph on her palm, down to her wrist. She tightened her hand into a fist around the crescent moon, and blood welled up between her fingers. She knew the wound would leave a scar, and she cherished it. It was the only mark she had of her defiance.

* * *

She had not seen the great city Pandemonium since her failed entreaty, and she passed through the gates of night with a sense of awe she couldn’t quite bury. She had no idea how long it had been—months and years were nebulous in a place without moon or sun—but it seemed that nothing had changed. Or everything had. Demons still fought each other in the narrow passages and battled _ en masse _ in the wider places. Ash still fell in steady gusts as the high spires disappeared into the clouds. Lilith gritted her teeth and ignored it all, no longer taking the time to make camp but striding past every wonder and terror with the same flat expression. She would not let Lucifer best her this time.

But the cracks in the ground that made up the thoroughfares of the city were different, now. There were doors much like the ones she knew lay in the palace, sticking out of jagged rock, all shut tightly. But they were no ordinary doors.

They whispered, reaching out to her, to the light that still flickered inside of her, words echoing in her mind in the voices of those she’d rather forget, bringing guilt for things she thought she'd hardened her heart to. But she could not drown out their recriminations with anything, not the songs she’d not been able to sing since coming to Hell, not the words that dropped from her lips like jagged pebbles. They scraped at her ribs with claws of darkness, plucking at the bloody strings of her heart until she found her feet bringing her to a threshold, torn between fascination and horror. She'd always strived for more than she was offered, and here was knowledge, of a sort, though in blood and iron, not sun-ripened fruit.

She reached out and pressed her palm to the door. It swung open under her touch.

The smell came first. She had dwelled so long in brimstone and smoke that the scent of fertile earth after untainted rain was almost foreign to her. But as recognition came and the aroma of petrichor melded with meadowsweet and myrrh, memories began to flood her mind. Long, hot afternoons spent bathing in the Tigris; warm, fragrant evenings where a fire lit up the dusk as Adam's laughter lit up her heart.

He had not always been so cruel. Paradise had brought darkness to his light, too.

Long, aching nights came to her on cooling breezes, brushing the hair from her shoulders as he had, whispering pleasures into her ears that may have been specious but she’d had faith, then. And mornings, always fresh and new, waking up with another beside her. Not being so alone. There were no days in Hell, no sun, moon, or stars. No seasons but ceaseless, vacant night. No weather but ash storms and caustic rains.

She stepped forward, eager for a taste of the fruits of paradise, sun-ripened and bursting on her tongue. No matter how well she tended her plants, they would never be half so beautiful as those she had named herself, those she had held in her heart almost like her own children.

And there were deadlier things, too, creeping on the edge of her vision. Disquiet, resentment, and that thing so much worse than hatred—indifference. But wasn't this beauty worth that pain? It all seemed so distant. Her petrified, numbing heart was alive with warmth, now, and what ecstasy lay within it. What agony. What sweetness.

And she was so close. All she had to do was step forward and she could pluck that perfect fig, could bring it to her lips and forget she'd ever come to the darkness. Forget she'd forsaken the light. Forget her children and her failures and her burdens. There would only be her, and there would only be him, and they could be happy.

She would wake from this endless nightmare, and she would not be alone.

But then Paimon, Lucifer’s imp, the demon who’d etched the marks of deliverance and her damnation upon her skin, grabbed her with clawed fingers, dragged her backwards with deceptive strength, and slammed the door shut.

And there was only brimstone and smoke, darkness and ruin.

He brought her to the palace, and she was shuffled into Lucifer’s chambers to await an audience. She had only just managed to calm her breathing when he arrived.

“My _ lord,” _she muttered flatly.

"I wanted to speak with you before the others arrive,” he said, offering her a smile that only reminded her of a predator’s grimace. "I am pleased with the progress you've made in taming the wastelands"

"How would you know?" She scowled. He had not checked up on her once since he’d left her in the wilderness, since she’d come to request aid and been denied.

"Oh, I have my ways”—he smirked and shrugged—”and when one can fly, one can see much."

She suppressed an eye roll. Her muscles twitched with the desire to return. She had not been so far away for so long. Mazikeen was loyal, certainly, but Lilith had not lived so long without developing a healthy sense of paranoia. "You would not offer me aid, but you took the time to spy?"

He chuckled. "I know everything that goes on in Hell. Quite like the garden, by the way. It’s not properly _ Eden _ of course, but... " He ran his tongue over his teeth. "Never could resist a good fig."

She would have to improve her defenses, discipline the Lilim. She would not permit him to watch her like God had in the garden.

"Oh!" Lucifer exclaimed. "Reminds me. I've recently returned from Earth. The real Eden is gone. Dead."

"What?" Lilith was falling, or maybe she had always been falling and had only now hit the ground, but she forced her expression to stay neutral, composed.

"Yep. Dear old Dad shut it down. Closed up shop.”

And she had another question she shouldn't ask, but she couldn't stop herself. "What happened to...?"

"Oh, Adam, that _ dullard." _ He laughed. "Expelled. He and his wife both, though not before we _ knew _each other quite thoroughly." He ran his tongue over his teeth salaciously, but Lilith barely noticed.

_ His wife? _

Lucifer was speaking again, simpering. "Such a tragic fall indeed. Would you believe no one had ever asked the poor girl what she desired before? And that _ that _was all it took for Father to send them away?"

"I-I don't—" She inhaled sharply. Something was quaking under her ribs, disturbing the stone of her heart. 

Lucifer frowned. "I thought you’d be pleased I punished that husband of yours."

But she had never hated Adam. She had hated God, had hated the angels—for taking away her choice, his choice, all their choices. And here, again, an angel taking away their choice. Earth or Hell, had they always been damned?

"Why would you do that?"

"To give them freedom!" he said, voice suddenly loud, brimming with self-righteousness. "To give them a _ choice. _ How could they make one when they didn’t even know they could?"

"But you only gave them a choice between ignorant servitude and eternal struggle!"

He huffed out a breath, seemingly torn between frustration and amusement. "Isn’t that the choice I gave _ you? _ Having regrets, are we?"

She shook her head. "How can we truly be free if our only choice is how we are to suffer?"

He snorted, but then a strange expression crossed over his face, and he sighed. "So, now that you’ve lived with your choice, would you return to that beach where I found you and choose differently?"

She thought of the garden, again. Of the fruit and the trees, the sun and the moon and the stars. Of the beauty, and of the pain. And then all of it fell away, replaced by ash and ruin and night. She raised her head high. "I shall always choose to suffer as a queen. _ Never _as a slave."

He nodded and seemed like he wanted to tell her something. But then his mouth flattened into a thin line. "We must meet the council. The other lords are waiting," he said, turning away. "Do not disappoint me, Lilith."

As she followed him out of his chambers, she couldn't manage sorrow, regret, or even rage. Instead there was an emptiness inside that reminded her of a pain she'd made herself forget. But there was something else, flickering in all that darkness. Pride. She wondered how long its meager flame could sustain her.

* * *

When Lilith returned to her Eden, it was to find her children battle weary. A rebellious group of demons had attacked while she was absent, and many Lilim were wounded. She could have waited, could have let them heal, but her pride would not let this offense rest. She immediately sent them out to retaliate, staying behind to repair what of their defenses had been damaged.

She was in her chambers, standing in front of the mirror, running her bone brush through her long hair, when Mazikeen entered. "Have you succeeded?"

"Yes." There was a long gash on her daughter’s face, across her brow and over her cheek. It still bled sluggishly.

Lilith didn’t turn around. "What have we gained?"

"Their land is ours. We have armaments for ten score demons, and most of their fungus crop was unharmed in the fighting."

"Good." She put the brush down.

She expected Mazikeen to leave as she normally did, but instead she stepped forward and made eye contact through the glass. "We lost forty-three Lilim today."

Something beat at Lilith’s heart, but it dissipated quickly and she only hummed. "Acceptable losses."

Mazikeen hissed in a breath, scowled, and smoothed her expression in the blink of an eye. "Is that all?" she asked sharply.

"Yes."

After she left, Lilith ran her fingertips down the tattoos of her other arm, across her chest, down to her belly which had swelled and receded so many times. Spiders’ webs crawled across the skin, pale lines imprinted in the flesh over and over again. The pain wasn't half as sharp as it used to be. There were so many of them, now. Some she hadn't seen since they'd crawled from her womb in a puddle of blood.

She didn’t even know most of their names.

* * *

Decades passed, and their position grew tenuous, but Lilith refused to admit her weakness. _ She _ was not at fault; someone else must be. She summoned Mazikeen to her throne room. Mazikeen, her eldest, her general. Her potential successor, she thought, in the scant moments when she allowed herself to consider the possibility of death.

When Mazikeen came to stand in front of her, back straight and stiff, Lilith regarded the wounds that had torn her leathers, the pain she refused to let show on her face. 

"You have failed me, daughter," she said. She could not tolerate more failures.

Mazikeen bowed her head slightly and replied, "I have."

Rage burned through Lilith, painted with underlying emotions she no longer allowed herself to feel. Her heart was too much stone for that. And, besides, anger was far safer. "This will not be tolerated much longer."

"Provide me with more provisions and troops, and maybe that will change," Mazikeen said, impertinently, and suddenly Lilith was out of patience. She did not have _ time _ for this when there were so many other things she needed to do lest everything fall apart.

She needed to meet with Lucifer again, to demand concessions from the other minor lords of Hell, to secure a stronger position in these endless wastes. So she told her eldest, "You should be grateful for what you’ve been given.”

"It’s not enough!" And no one yelled at Lilith, not since Adam, not since angels. But Mazikeen continued in her treachery, "Your children die by the scores, and you expect gratitude."

Lilith scoffed; of course she did. A single Lilim life wasn’t worth as much as their collective survival. Why didn’t Mazikeen understand that? "I _ expect _obedience," she said sharply, presuming the conversation to be finished. Mazikeen had always backed down before.

But she was still talking. "No."

Lilith blinked. "What?"

_ "No," _ Mazikeen said louder. "You’ve given me nothing."

She remembered the squalling infant her daughter had once been, plucking her from the blood and viscera of her less fortunate sibling, recalled how helpless she’d been, how easily she might have died. "I gave you _ life.” _

Mazikeen laughed, and Lilith bristled. "That’s it?" she asked mockingly.

As if _ Lilith _had ever been given more than that. As if she hadn’t wrested all she had from nothing. As if she hadn’t given so much of herself to ensure her children’s survival. "Creation will give you nothing but your life," she told her errant daughter. "Anything else you must take for yourself!"

The lines of tattoo on her skin burned with the memory; it had been the first lesson she’d learned, and the hardest of all of them. How had she failed so completely that her first born didn’t understand it?

Mazikeen grimaced. "Then I’ll take my freedom." She turned and made to walk away.

And Lilith saw another, turning to walk away—from her husband, from paradise, from everything she’d ever known. But mercy was weakness, and weakness was death.

"Freedom doesn’t exist." _ Didn’t she understand? _ "You will forever be beholden to someone."

"Anyone but you," Mazikeen said, still walking, and sorrow threatened at the edge of Lilith’s mind, but she had pushed it down so many times she barely remembered how it felt. 

Instead she thought of the other Lilim, of the rebellion Mazikeen’s foolish actions might have inspired. How much might she have weakened their position? Liabilities could not be tolerated.

"You will never find anyone who cares for you like this family," she hissed, but it seemed she had finally pushed her first child too far.

She thought Mazikeen might have said something as she left the camp, trekking out alone into the wilderness, but she couldn’t hear it over the whipping winds. And she found she didn’t truly care. She well knew what it was to be cast out, what it was to be vilified, but she felt nothing. She grabbed for the necklace around her neck, the abalone crescent she had carried with her since before she ever knew how ash tasted. She tore it from her neck, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it beneath her heel. And, still, she felt nothing. She had numbed herself too much for that, now.

She wondered what the girl in the garden might’ve felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings: Graphic depictions of child birth, child death, grief, implied/referenced child abuse


End file.
